


De Santa Baby

by trepidatingboarfetus



Category: Grand Theft Auto Series (Video Games), Grand Theft Auto V
Genre: Christmas Fluff, Christmas Shopping, Cowboy Hats, M/M, Santa Hat
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-26
Updated: 2020-12-26
Packaged: 2021-03-10 21:16:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,851
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28333725
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/trepidatingboarfetus/pseuds/trepidatingboarfetus
Summary: Michael takes Trevor shopping for Christmas gifts, and hilarity ensues.
Relationships: Michael De Santa/Trevor Philips
Comments: 2
Kudos: 29





	De Santa Baby

**Author's Note:**

  * For [thenomansland](https://archiveofourown.org/users/thenomansland/gifts).



> The second gift for my very good friend. Takes place right after Song for a Winter's Night. More lighthearted than that somber piece, but it's Christmas, and even Trevor gets a day to be a normal goof as explained herein. Enjoy and Happy Holidays/Better Days!

“How the fuck did I let myself get talked into this again??”

Michael has lost track of how many times he’s heard that question, and it’s not even from one of his children. No, it’s from a man-child he still wants to refer to as his best friend even though he’s pretty sure they’ve always skated over that line in one way or another over the years, just as they currently do. Still. 

He grinds his palm over his face and tries aimlessly to remember one of those coping techniques he was taught by that assclown Friedlander before he made off with who knows how much of his money and secrets over the years, but really, it’s just managing to make him even more frustrated on top of things because it’s reminding him that he should’ve killed that douchebag when he’d had the chance. Sometimes, just _sometimes_ , some people need to die. Not everyone. Just some. 

And here it is Christmas, and Trevor has him thinking about killing and death for fuck’s sake. Just like old times. 

He sighs. “Look, if you want to go sit down on a bench and shut the hell up, be my guest, but then you don’t get the credit of telling the kids that these presents are from you.” By the torn look on Trevor’s face and the pout on his lip, it appears he’s about to argue the logistics of this point. Michael sticks his finger in his face and wiggles it for emphasis. “ _Nuh-uh_ , no fucking way, I am _not_ doing that shit again. The days of us doing the whole _these gifts are from the both of us_ shit are long over, pal. I already have to split that duty with Mandy, anyway, and the kids already caught on a while ago. They aren’t stupid.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Trevor mutters to himself, unsure. “It’s just that they aren’t little goddamn kids anymore, you know? I can’t come running in with Barbies and video games. I don’t know what to get them.”

A laugh bubbles up out of nowhere at that statement. “You’ve solved half of your dilemma. Jim only cares about violent video games and weed.”

Trevor stops suddenly in the middle of mall traffic and scratches his head. “Uh, what were we doing at his age again?”

He knows. Oh God, he _knows_. It’s a fucking sore spot, but he’d promised them all that he wouldn’t push Jim nor would he try to lead him down his fucked up path because God knows he didn’t want that sort of life for him since he is too sensitive for that shit, but sometimes…sometimes….

Sometimes he thinks his son would benefit from growing the fuck up too, just like he’d had to. Maybe just a little. But maybe that’s stupid thinking. He looks at him and Trevor, how they turned out, and are _they_ any good?

“It doesn’t matter,” he mumbles, trying to avoid the subject. “Just get him Righteous Slaughter 8, and he’ll fucking love you for it because I know he hasn’t charged it to any of our cards yet, Amanda sure as hell didn’t get it for him, and I know I’m not. Tracey is a little more difficult, but if you buy her any makeup from any pompous ass influencer, that should be good enough.”

“OK, what about Amanda?”

Oh, Jesus Christ. “What about her?”

Trevor gives him an odd look. “What do you mean ‘what about her?’ I used to get her shit too, and it’s disrespectful as fuck to show up empty-handed to the lady of the house.”

Michael is pretty damn certain he heard _even if I can’t stand that fake piece_ mumbled under Trevor’s breath, but he raises his eyes to the sky and counts to 20...and then 30 when his irritation still hasn’t dissipated. “I don’t think you can get her anything that she’d want besides you being in Sandy Shores and very much away from us,” he rambles in that quick way of his where he really doesn’t care for the other person to hear what the fuck he’s saying; he’s just delivering a message. 

But Trevor is used to it and doesn’t speak for a few minutes, and when he does, he only utters a simple haunting, “Oh.”

Oh? Mike thinks to himself. Of all the grandiose spiels he’d expected to be on the receiving end today, this isn’t one of them. 

A couple of times, Trevor takes off on his own to do some shopping while Mike, ever the vigilant friend, keeps a bench marked firmly with his ass and legs because the mall is filling up with other last-minute shoppers who glare at him as if he has two heads, but the fun part of Christmas that he never explains to anyone -- expect Trevor once long ago when they were drunk, and he’s not sure if Trevor even remembers -- is that he doesn’t have to worry about all of this fake niceties bullshit. If someone is a dickhead, he can be one right back because this time of year, there’s no short supply of people with Napoleon complexes being stuffed down his merry fucking throat. 

Trevor’s probably the weirdest person he’s ever experienced on this holiday. Whereas he feels he can actually be himself and let the fake bullshit slide off, Trevor actually revels in being nice on the one day of the year where it’s OK for someone like him to be that way, and he goes overboard. 

Instead of buying the kids each one thing, he returns with multiple bags because _he couldn’t decide_. “I have more money than I need anyway, and this makes up for lost time.” There’s a huge sweet grin plastered to his face that’s so infectious that Michael can’t help but smile back. 

He notices more bags and points to them. “What’s all that?”

Trevor shoves them behind his back quickly and looks away. “Eh, you know...stuff for Amanda and you,” he whispers the last part out. 

Michael shakes his head and chuckles. It’s ridiculously hard to get or even stay mad at Trevor, especially at this time of the year, because he knows so much of what his friend’s childhood was like and how he didn’t always get to be a part of the gift-receiving, so doing these little gestures mean all the world to him. He chooses to wrap his arm around him and slide him near, soaking in his warmth despite not really needing it where they live now but still seeking it out anyway. “Thanks, T. It means a lot.”

They continue walking like that for a while longer, taking in the sights, listening to the music -- more than once Michael is surprised by Trevor’s knowledge of what’s playing on the Christmas mall radio speakers -- and it isn’t long before they cross a leather shop where the smells take Michael back to another time altogether from his youth with balls made from pigskins.

Trevor seems to be caught onto another idea. “Holy shit, Mikey! Cowboy hats!!”

He glances over to the area where his friend is excitedly waving his hands and sees two hats that appear a little different from what he’s used to, but he isn’t exactly...what’s the word he’s looking for here... _appalled_ by them either? Their tag specifies them as Minnetonka Moccasin Outback Hats. 

Trevor shoves a black one on his head and then a brown one on his own head, and Michael stares at them in the mirror provided, feeling something crazy and strange build in his heart. Especially with Trevor’s on, it’s as if years have slowly been shaved off, and they’re every bit the outlaws they used to be. 

In another time, they could have been outlaws forever, riding the open plain. He can see it dancing wildly before his eyes, and all he has to do is reach out and grab it. 

But before he can, the dream is whisked away from him as Trevor yanks off the hats. “Fuck yeah, I’m buying these!” he announces on his way to the counter with them in hands that are already doing a balancing act with so many bags.

“Hey, wait!” he calls out and runs after Trevor. Something in him won’t leave those hats alone, whatever the hell it is. “I’ll get these. My present to you.” He clears his throat, and his face reddens. “To us.”

If the Grinch’s heart can grow three sizes, then let it not be said that Trevor Philip’s smile cannot grow the same. And shine as brilliantly as the Star of Bethlehem. “Really, Mike? Fuck yeah, buddy! That would be damn awesome of you!”

While he is paying for the hats and chatting up the saleslady -- because he tells himself he needs to stay in practice to see if he’s still got that old charm, but really, he has no excuse -- Trevor has skipped off to somewhere else, and when he leaves the store, he can’t make heads nor tails of where the fuck his friend could’ve gone now, so he sits and waits on a bench until he hears someone murmuring his name from the direction of the mall bathrooms.

Sure enough, it’s his prodigal bff. “Trevor, what the hell--”

Trevor hushes him, but then slides his hand in a bag and pulls out something red and fuzzy. “Just trust me for a minute, eh? I want to see it on you--”

Michael balks. Nononono _no_. No, fuck you, he _knows_ what the fuck that is. Ever since the surname change, _everyone_ has been trying to get him to wear one of these goddamn things every Christmas, making snide-ass comments about his name and weight, and he’ll be _damned_ if his sometimes buddy/sometimes fuckbuddy/sometimes whatever the hell steps next in line--

“Michael!!”

“ _No!!_ Absolutely not!” He waves his arms protectively in front of his face. “You’re not getting me in that fucking thing or any variation of _any_ Santa anything, goddammit!”

A boyish pout forms on Trevor’s face, and he huffs. “Jesus, you’re a real mood killer, you know? I just wanted to have a little fun, maybe tease you a bit while we make out in the bathroom because fuck knows when we’ll get another moment or if we’ll _ever_ get another moment at all, and I just wanted to be close to you for Christmas, for fuck’s sa--”

He can’t take anymore. The second Trevor pouted really did him in, but he won’t say that out loud, but really, he feels like an ass sitting here nitpicking over a name, forgetting that the man next to him doesn’t get many nice days like this. Days where he gets to be like this. Days of normalcy. 

And as they’re making out on the bathroom counter, he gazes at him and Trevor in the mirrors, lips swollen and faces flushed from exertion, Eartha Kitt playing over their heads just a little loudly, wondering again at how they turned out, and thinks are they honestly that worse than anyone else around them?


End file.
